Have a look at our new LayersXXL product mentioned
below. It adds 180 new photo and design features to Photoshop Elements
for Windows. Together with ElementsXXL you now get over 400 new features
in Photoshop Elements. Most LayersXXL's functionality was originally planned
to be added to ElementsXXL 2, but it required so much additional work
that it was postponed and now released as a seperate product. If you like
to achieve great results with multiple photos (that are impossible with
a single photo) or like to use layer compositions and over 100 new layer
style features, you will love LayersXXL.

ElementsXXL received a 10-page article in the German
magazine "c't Fotografie 2/2015" with several tutorials on how
to use certain features and achieve special effects. The article also
reviewed ElementsXXL and mentioned a few problems. The reproducible ones
are now fixed in ElementsXXL 2.52, the remaining one or two were probably
due to a very special system configuration. The article is a nice introduction
to ElementsXXL, so definitely worth a look.

Lately I noticed a crash of Photoshop Elements 13
64-bit every few days when using it more extensively. Although these unreproducible
crashes were rare, it is nice to see that Photoshop Elements 13.1 is available.
So far there was no more crash, but the test period was too short to be
sure yet. Anyway, I can only recommend to update to 13.1. See the Graphics
News section below for more details.

LayersXXL adds up to 180 photo and design features
to Photoshop Elements for Windows that were previously only available
in Photoshop. These features are available as new menu items, icons and
dialogs, so they seamlessly integrate into the user interface of Photoshop
Elements. LayersXXL works with version 6 to 13 of Photoshop Elements for
Windows.

LayersXXL offers tools for performing the following
tasks with the help of multiple image files: Denoising high ISO shots,
Depth of Field Increase, HDR creation, combining Light Trail photos, preparing
a manual composition, multiple exposure effects and panorama stitching.
There are even seven action-like task items for doing these things in
an automated fashion.

LayersXXL also includes a Layer Comp panel for creating
and managing layer compositions like in Photoshop. Even more, there is
a new Style Settings dialog similar to Photoshop's Layer Styles dialog
with 5 new layer effects, 15 new blending controls and 90 layer effect
options.

ElementsXXL supplies 230 professional features for
Photoshop Elements and greatly enhances the image editing experience in
Photoshop Elements. The latest version 2.52 of ElementsXLL fixes seven
bugs, e.g. a crash in PSE 13 with the Curves dialog, two problems of the
"Render 16-bit Document" command, localization problems, and
removes the Shift + N shortcut.

Elements BundleThe Elements Bundle consists of the following
four products for Photoshop Elements for Windows: ElementsXXL, LayersXXL,
MetaRaw and FilterHub. It costs $99.95 and you save 33% compared to ordering
the products individually.

The "Free Photoshop-Compatible Tools" page
has been updated with new tools that run Photoshop plugins. If you do
not own a commercial tool like Photoshop, Photoshop Elements or Paint
Shop Pro, we recommend using Paint.net, PhotoPluse SE, PhotoFiltre, XnView
or IrfanView.

Interesting to see that there is so much demand for
a HDR plugin. Our latest LayersXXL product contains a HDR feature, but
as LayersXXL only works in Photoshop Elements, it would certainly be a
good idea to do a more advanced HDR product that also works with Photoshop.
A masking plugin always scored very high in similar polls in the past,
but we are still collecting more ideas for producing something special.
ElementsXXL 3 will definitely be released this year.

As FocalBlade is one of our most popular products,
a version 3 is planned too. Surprisingly there seems to be some demand
for an edge & frame plugin. We have constantly wanted to do such a
plugin since 1999, but other projects always came inbetween and then we
had the impression that such types of effects were not that popular anymore.
An action recording plugin (maybe even as an ElementsXXL feature) will
certainly come in future. Working on the HDR feature of LayersXXL brought
a lot of new ideas for LightMachine, so a version 2 of it is certainly
a possibility.

Thanks for participating in the poll and providing
some things to ponder on...

The latest poll is about the versions of Photoshop and
Photoshop Elements that you use. A similar poll was conducted a year ago,
but several things have changed in the meantime, including new versions
of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. You can vote for more than one version
of Photoshop as well as for Photoshop and Photoshop Elements versions.

Xerographics now offers its 11 plugins
as 64-bit Windows versions. Additionally the plugins that previously were
shareware are now donationware, so they can be freely used, but the developer
would be pleased about a money donation if you like them. It seems that
the Xero plugins are the first free ones to become available as 64-bit
versions since the first 64-bit alpha version of FilterMeister was made
available a year ago.Visit
website...

Nikon offers a new free image browsing software called
ViewNX-i as well as a free image editing tool called
NX-D (for Win/Mac). ViewNX-i includes sorting and organization
features, allows viewing photo and camera information and lets you add
descriptions and ratings. A button runs the Nikon NX-D editing software
on the selected files. NX-D supports NEF und NRW raw files as well as
JPEG and TIFF images. It features floating palettes and various displays,
e.g. comparisons of multiple images and adjustment of before-and-after
images. Adjustments are saved as sidecar files for non-destructive editing.Visit
website...

Image Composite Editor (ICE) (for
Windows) is an advanced panoramic image stitcher created by the Microsoft
Research Computational Photography Group. Given a set of overlapping photographs
of a scene shot from a single camera location, the app creates a high-resolution
panorama that seamlessly combines the original images. ICE can also create
a panorama from a panning video, including stop-motion action overlaid
on the background. Finished panoramas can be shared with friends and viewed
in 3D by uploading them to the Photosynth web site. Panoramas can also
be saved in a wide variety of image formats, including JPEG, TIFF, and
Photoshop’s PSD/PSB format, as well as the multiresolution tiled
format used by HD View and Deep Zoom. Visit
website...

Substance (for Windows) is a free
tool for creating 3D organic art. It uses an evolutionary algorithm to
generate a continually evolving stream of shapes. The result can be saved
as a HD image file, as 3D meshes or as an animated sequence. There is
also an augmented reality feature, which places the 3D rendering in a
photo.Visit
website...

Adobe released version 13.1 of Photoshop Elements.
It includes UI & Elements Live improvements, stability-related fixes
and a Camera Raw update. Additionally under Edit > Preferences >
Display & Cursors you can now find an option for 200% UI scaling for
4K Monitors. To install the update choose Help > Updates from the menu
in Photoshop Elements. We recommend installing this update.Visit
website...

Photoshop turned 25 years old last
month. It all started in 1987 when Thomas Knoll developed a program called
Display, which was turned into Photoshop and released 1990 by Adobe. Today
it is used by millions of people all over the world and has become the
most popular image editing tool. By the way, its smaller brother Photoshop
Elements will be 15 years old next year.Visit
website...

So far Serif was known for its Windows-only PhotoPlus editor. Now they
try to rival Photoshop on the Mac with a new image editing application
called Affinity Photo. Affinity Photo will offer a CMYK
mode, 16-bit/channel support, LAB colour, RAW conversion, colour management
as well as compatibility with PSD files and 64-bit Photoshop plugins.
Its planned price of 50 USD for a perpetual licence is certainly a big
plus. However, Affinity Photos is still in beta stage, so you have to
apply as a beta tester to try it out. Hopefully they will start working
on a Windows version as soon as the Mac version is out.Visit
website...

Still got questions ?

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The Plugin Site offers various resources for Photoshop, Lightroom, Photoshop Elements, Paint Shop Pro, Photo-Paint and other applications. We also develop own products, including Photoshop Elements plugins, Photoshop plugins, external editors for Lightroom and standalone applications.